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Producer Who Lured Women Into Porn Through ‘Force, Fraud, And Coercion’ Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison

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Marlo Safi Culture Reporter
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A porn producer was sentenced to 20 years in prison after using fake websites and other methods to lure women into appearing in porn videos that would be posted online without their consent, the Justice Department said in a statement Monday.

Ruben Andre Garcia, 31, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and was sentenced for conspiring with the owners of GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys to carry out the scheme, according to the statement.

Garcia and co-defendant Michael Pratt targeted 18- to 20-year-old women between 2013 and 2017 through Craigslist and fake websites they created to lead the women to believe they were applying to work as clothed models, according to the statement. (RELATED: Investigation Finds PornHub Continues To Proliferate Non-consensual Porn)

Once victims responded to the ads, Garcia and Pratt would reveal that they were looking for women to appear in pornographic videos. When the victims expressed hesitation, Garcia and co-conspirators would have paid female references contact the victims to falsely reassure them that the videos wouldn’t be posted online or shared with people the victims knew. If a reference convinced a victim to agree to appear on video, they would receive additional compensation, according to the Justice Department statement.

Garcia would promptly book flights to San Diego (where the videos were created) once the victims agreed, so there was no time for the women to change their minds, according to the statement. Once the victim arrived to the hotel or short-term rental unit where the video would be shot, Garcia would give the victim a contract that had no mention of “girlsdoporn” or “girlsdotoys,” and the victims would not be given a copy of the contracts.

Victims were often offered alcohol or marijuana before the video shoots and then told to make recorded statements saying they were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to the statement.

The victims were often misled about how long the video shoots would last, and if victims did not want to finish videos, Garcia and co-conspirators would threaten to sue the victims, post the video online, or cancel their flights home. When victims pleaded to end the video shoots due to pain and bleeding, Garcia told them they had to continue filming, according to the Justice Department.

Garcia would also pay the victims less than initially agreed upon, often citing tattoos or moles on the victim’s body as reasons to pay them less.

After the videos were posted online, victims who contacted Garcia and co-conspirators in an effort to have them taken down were ignored or blocked.

“This reprehensible crime shows the horrible reality of the pornography industry, which is rife with abuse and coercion,” Benjamin Bull, general counsel for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said in a press release. “Even Garcia acknowledged this in his court testimony, when he called the pornography industry ‘an evil business.'”

“Ruben Garcia chose to exploit and deceive these young women for his personal satisfaction and financial gain and today he was held accountable for those decisions,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Suzanne Turner said, according to the Justice Department. 

In January 2020, 22 women were given $12.7 million as part of a civil lawsuit against GirlsDoPorn owners Garcia, Pratt and Matthew Isaac Wolfe. GirlsDoPorn was ordered to take down the women’s videos, according to the Sacramento Bee. All three men were charged in federal court in October 2019 with sex trafficking crimes, according to a Justice Department statement, which also notes that GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys generated more than $17 million in revenue. 

Pratt, who was a fugitive at the time of the charges, is still a fugitive nearly two years later, according to the Justice Department statement. Wolfe’s trial is pending.